“Under Stalin,” Sergei gritted out as he put his shoulders under the spray again, “I would have had you flogged.”

“Oh, I am sure of it,” Cherevkin said, amusement coloring his tone. “In fact, I don’t doubt you would have insisted on seeing to it personally. And liked it.”

Sergei’s head snapped up. “Watch yourself, comrade.”

“I was enjoying watching you. Pity you stopped,” the colonel answered. And he started fiddling with the control for the showers.

He growled. Couldn’t help it, an actual growl, as he stared at the bastard. The spray fluctuated on his body, hot then cold, strong then weak, as Arkady toyed with the water pressure and smiled at him.

He found my pussy, the slickened lips that proclaimed my passion. It was his turn to yelp, “Hey!” as he jerked his hand away. “You’re a girl!”

“Tell me about it,” I murmured, as confused as he was by the sudden turn of events.

Unfortunately, even under my blue, at-home-now sweat pants, the warm feel of Rita’s bare-to-the-hip leg draped over mine means otherwise. I want her to know I’m glad she’s here. With my unpinned foot, I begin to lightly stroke her exposed thigh. Rita sighs and continues to read.

There’s always a point of no-return in the middle of something you know you shouldn’t be doing. If that something is between a man and his step-daughter, at its apex, a gentleman step-dad excuses himself and walks away. Instead of using it to walk, my curious left foot slides higher, plowing the slippery boxers along the curve of her, hoping for a peek at some panties.

The man behind the counter said it was new in. The large conical shaped snout, the upper and lower lobes on the tail fin, the side gills, they are all anatomically correct. The rows of razor sharp teeth have been replaced with soft and pliable plastic incisors, each one acting as a stimulator similar to those found on cock rings. But the best part of all, so the man said, is the dorsal fin. Inside the shark is a tiny motor that runs off batteries. By pressing a small button on the tail section, the motor sends little vibrations to the tip of the dorsal fin. Once the head section of the shark has been fully inserted, the fin is perfectly placed to tickle the clitoris. As well as being arguably the most well known predatory fish in the ocean, nature has designed the arguably the best ergonomically satisfying dildo on the market.

It took a little bit of cunning to get out of “Serenity Now — Step One” class, but since I’ve been such a goody-goody I’d racked up some trust points and the instructor bought my story that I was feeling queasy from weaning off my meds. The truth was I was feeling really horny and wasn’t about to pass up broom closet sex.

I went back to my room to give my lie some credibility, and to change into a skirt and take off my panties, having the passing thought that what if he just wants to talk?

In a broom closet? Not likely, dummy.

I sat up and kissed him hard; part of my brain wanted to take a chunk out, to consume him, chew him up and swallow. We knelt on the bed facing each other. Finally I could reach his ears, his neck; I ran my tongue in the hollows of his collarbones and followed the thumping vein in his neck up to the back of his ear. His hands were all over me, under my clothes, on top of them, like they were another layer of skin that felt just as good to touch as my bareness underneath.

We had a few more rounds and then went to Room 8. The room had no sink to wash the dirt from my nails. Not even a toilet. Just a bottle of disinfectant lotion on the nightstand along with a roll of paper towels. The wastebasket overflowed.

She asked me what I wanted.

“My dog back.”

“What?”

“I need to be held, and then I want to smack your ass.”

She told me the price and I paid it. Keeping the big bills out of view.

We spread old blankets on the floor, and he traces unknown patterns against my skin with quiet focus until we are both dizzier with need than with our respective intoxicants. He rolls to his back and lets me take him slowly, arms splayed above his head, vulnerable and decadent.

There could have been better places to do it. I knew that. Sure. I know a lot of things, but processing information is always a little bit harder when you’re pressed up against a shelf in the stacks with a girl making sure you stay there, all curves slotting into your own curves like a fucking puzzle piece, all black hair and mint gum and hands rough and chapped from the cold wind outside.

“What are you doing, you bad boy?”

It was a situation in which a slip of the tongue was par for the course. So he pretended he’d misheard the first time.

“Oh, Greg,” she repeated. The sound was not much more than a breeze from her lips.

He was about to say, “You mean Tom.”

But then she said: “Greg, you’re such a flirt. You know I’m crazy about you, don’t you.”

He thought of Marco’s lip ring grazing her clit and his tan hands gripping her thighs. He thought of Lakshmi flushed with the freshness of the scene, all too willing to let Marco squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples as much as he liked while he fucked her, sticking his dick in her deep — undoubtedly deeper than John could go, as middling in size as he was. He thought of Marco’s lean fingers in her mouth and his teeth catching her earlobe, of his cock pressing into the exact same space John’s was pressing, of his cum filling her, and at that moment he shocked himself by muttering, “Fuck yes, I want him to fuck you, be a whore, fuck you right up like a whore,” and coming — like a collision, like a detonation, like a suicide in reverse.

All of this part is scripted. All of this part — the lecture, the position, the implement — is the same every time. The content of the lecture isn’t perfect, but it’s the closest she could come to what really happened without saying too much. It took Mary some time to find a . . . professional . . . who was willing to work with a script, even a short one. But Sister Catherine seems to have some genuine affinity for the script. She says the lines with passion and intensity; she wields the implement with grim determination. And Sister Catherine seems also to appreciate the free hand that she has with Mary once the scripted part is completed.

I was used to having sex with women minutes after being introduced. As actors we tried to keep a sense of humor and fun about the situation. It was professional, not sexy. That’s why they call it acting. You’ve just got to sell it for the camera. But the interview with Daphne was sexy. She was beautiful and intelligent and I was seismically attracted her. I swear, if someone had said, “Decide right now, based on the little you know, if you want to marry her” I would have said Yes.

“Hold that there,” she said to me, yanking me away from the car and pushing me into the alley she’d parked alongside. “Now, if you can’t follow the simplest directions, I don’t think you should really be displayed in public, do you?”

“Doctor by day, dominatrix by night.” I can see the headline, the tacky picture of a discipline queen, whip in one hand, stethoscope in the other. After all, why not? I’m good at my day job. People undress at my command everyday, passive and grateful. “Whatever you say, doctor,” they say, “You’re the doctor, you tell me.” “Thank you, doctor,” they generally say sincerely afterwards, “that was a thorough exam all right.” I have them bending over and spreading for me all day. Why not take it to the night, spice it up? Probably make more money without the insurance hassles. The doctor was definitely IN. In charge, in control, in the mood.